Junge Freiheit, May 7, 2020, https://jungefreiheit.de/debatte/interview/2020/gauland-der-8-mai-ist-kein-freudentag/.
15 Krautkrämer, “Gauland”.
16 AfD Fraktion Brandenburg, “Der 8. Mai 1945 war das Ende des zweiten Weltkrieges in #Europa,” Facebook, May 8, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/afdfraktion/photos/a.1482727218676-491/2641414492807752/?type=3&theater.
17 Krautkrämer, “Gauland”.
18 Georg Pazderski, “Bundespräsident #Heuss fand einst bis heute gültige Worte: „Im Grunde genommen bleibt dieser 8.5.1945 die tragischste und fragwürdigste Paradoxie für jeden von uns,” Facebook, May 8, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/Pazderski.Georg/videos/582273155724817.
19 Pazderski, “Bundespräsident”.
20 Pazderski, “Bundespräsident”.
21 Protschka, “8. Mai”.
22 Protschka, “8. Mai”.
23 Sophie Schmalenberger, “‘Long live freedom!’: How the AfD presents itself as Defender of the German Basic Law,” CARR Insight Blog, April 18, 2020, https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/04/18/long-live-freedom-how-the-afd-presents-itself-as-defender-of-the-german-basic-law/.
24 AfD Bayern (@AfD_Bayern), “Nicht der 8. Mai—Merkels endgültiger Rückzug aus der Politik wird einst als Tag der Befreiung in die Geschichtsbücher eingehen,” Twitter, May 8, 2020. This Tweet was deleted by the AfD Bavaria (@AfD_Bayern) but has been captured by the author.
Putin’s Amendments to Russia’s Constitution Sparks Debate About Russian Nationalism
Valery Engel
On many occasions, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for the adoption of new amendments to the Russian Constitution. Putin has usually referenced several reasons why the head of state would want to change the basic law of the country, which is only twenty-seven years old. This is the desire to expand the powers of the Duma (parliament), and limit the tenure of the presidency to two terms without the fateful word “in a row”, which allowed Putin to be elected four times, to ensure the immunity of former presidents and establish the priority of the constitution of the Russian Federation over international law.
The gossip behind all this activity is Putin’s desire to remain at the helm of the state after 2024, moving to the Chairperson of the Parliament, and recently, his former adviser Vladislav Surkov1 said that after the adoption of the amendments Putin’s presidential terms must be reset and he has to get a new opportunity to run again (this statement was quickly disavowed by Kremlin, but in the end of the campaign this amendment appeared in the collection).
By the president’s decision, a working group was formed2 to prepare proposals for amending the constitution. This is not to say that the idea of updating the constitution caused a stir among the population of the country. Until recently, only professional politicians, state media and individual bloggers showed interest in the amendments. The authorities doubt that it will be able to ensure a decent turnout at the referendum. In connection with that, Putin proposed to make the vote on a weekday and declare this date a day off.
This process would continue to be quite routine, taking place within the framework of existing domestic political realities, if there had not been for the discussion on social networks about the need to fix in the text of the constitution the “state-forming role” of the Russian national majority. This discussion quickly went beyond the internet.
A debate About Russian ethno-nationalism
A number of authors of the very opposite political orientation took part in it. ‘With each passing day, discussions about the special status of (ethnic) Russians in the constitution, the state-forming role of one people are gaining momentum. At first, this was perceived as the destiny of marginals, then it went to the first buttons of TV channels and to the Duma tribune’, writes on his Facebook page a well-known Russian political scientist, associate professor of foreign regional studies and foreign policy at Russian Humanitarian University, Sergey Markedonov.3
There are incomparably more nationalists than was thought. The Kremlin’s harsh repressions against right-wing radicals in the recent years destroyed their political and organizational structure, but did not destroy nationalist ideology, whose popularity among the intellectuals was above expectations. ‘We are dealing with a strange situation’, says one of the supporters of the “Russian amendments”, Doctor of History Artem Ermakov, 4 ‘the vast majority of the population of our country continues to identify themselves as Russians, but this is not enshrined in any legal document. Except, probably, all-Russian census, which regularly confirms this result. The majority of the population declares that it is Russian, but absolutely nothing follows from this. Even our country is called “Russia” only in brackets, because “Russian Federation”—then its more formal name “Russia”—it’s like a tribute to some traditions’.
He is echoed by the well-known pro-communist politician of the late Soviet Union, member of the Supreme Council of the time of M. Gorbachev, and now the opposition public figure Viktor Alksnis: ‘For the last hundred years the Russian people were remembered at the official level only in the year of trials’, he writes. ‘Yes, there was a famous toast of Stalin for the Russian people. Yes, films were made, books were published, songs were written in which Russian history and Russian people were present, their exploits were sung. But at the official level, the Russian people were absent, they were not there’. Alksnis, an ethnic Latvian living in Moscow, believes that ‘Russia is primarily RUSSIAN RUSSIA and Russia is the RUSSIAN STATE’. He indignantly condemned well-known people in the country: Russians of Armenian descent such as film director Karen Shakhnazarov and political scientist Gevorg Mirzoyan, who spoke out in a popular TV talk show against ethno-amendments. They called them ‘outright discrimination and dividing the peoples of Russia into first grade and second’.5
Oddly enough, he is echoed by a well-known Russian liberal, minister of economics in the Yeltsin government, Andrei Nechaev,6 co-chair of the opposite “Civil Initiative” Party. ‘Accidentally I turned on (TV show) Russia 1’, he writes on Facebook, ‘and there are Shakhnazarov, Kurginyan, Zhirinovsky and Elena Yampolskaya led by Solovyov [all ethnic Armenians or Jews—author’s note] teaching us Russian patriotism’. When asked by the author what he didn’t like the most—the ethnic origin of the speakers or the fact that they taught the audience patriotism, he replied, ‘both’.
Ordinary people are not far behind them. Denis Titov,7 referring to the author
